They sure liked the suffix -matic at the time. Liquamatic, Hydra-Matic, Turbo-matic, Electromatic, Simplimatic, and Vacamatic all appear in just this article.

The Lowdown On 1942 Cars

Exactly What Have War Conditions And Shortages Done To Your 1942 Car? Here’s Detroit’s Answer To The Challenge.

by Frederick C. Russell

CALL them the 1942 cars if you like, but the glittering dreams that are rolling off the Detroit assembly lines along with tanks, bomber engines and the exciting implements of this bewildering era are, in reality, the latest models of American ingenuity.

Uncle Tom takes a gander at America’s favorite prestige automobile and discovers that for real economy, believe it or not, Cadillac is tops.

By Tom McCahill

“Gee Dad, look at the new Wurlitzer console organ, de luxe style!”

“No, Son, that’s one of them sightseeing trains.”

Obviously they are both wrong: the object they are looking at is a new Cadillac. For though the 1954 Caddie was not designed to look like a B-36 in flight, that long tail makes it possible to back over a guy for twenty minutes before the wheels touch him.

“Good looks, real performance and lots of new ideas” should enable the new medium-priced Kaiser to give competitors a run for their money, says Tom McCahill.

THE 1951 Supersonic six-cylinder Kaiser Special—one of three all-new lines produced this year by Kaiser-Frazer —is quite an automobile. It has good looks, real performance and a lot of brand new little ideas which should cause competitors to take inventory of their own merchandise.

Was it a bet in the office? Did he get free drinks every time he mentioned a Chinaman in a review? This is getting so ridiculous I’ve added a McCahill Chinamen tag. Also, why would you bring an embalmed Chinaman to a firemen’s clambake?

Although it has the smallest engine of any production car built in England, this cute bucket corners like a baby Ferrari, says Tom.

By Tom McCahill

ON seeing a Morris Minor going down the road, an Irish friend of mine once said to me, “If any one ever hit me with one of them things and I found it out, I’d turn both the roller skate and the driver over me knee.”

FOR some time it has been known that Renault, France’s vigorously conducted national car factory, was working on a new car to come between the miniature 45-cubic-inch 4 CV and the 2.2-litre Fregate. I knew the time for production was drawing near and one day I had a tip that if I was in Paris at a certain time, and ready to take plane for an undisclosed destination, I “might see something interesting.”

A “warm missile” is one way our English cousins might sum up the new Crosley “Hotshot.” Whatever you call it, though, this brand-new, miniature American sport car should prove a fiery shot in the arm to its big, somber American contemporaries. This new car is something to have fun with and enjoy—definitely not a vehicle to carry crepe at your grandmother’s funeral.

I’ve never really thought about it, but it must be really hard to come up with new and interesting superlatives for things you like.

“…Dr. Porsche’s engineering with such cars as the SSK had the same head-spinning effect as a pipeful of poppy dust to a Chinese playboy.”

MI Tests the German Porsche

If money is no object and you are looking for a small competition car that’s really loaded with TNT, this is it, our Uncle Tom reports.

By Tom McCahill

THE late Dr. Ferdinand Porsche was the Hopalong Cassidy of the automobile business. For 50 years he engineered mouth-watering cars for generations of big boys to dream about. What Hopalong does for the kids today, old Doe Porsche did for their old man’s old man by building cars with all the intrigue of a Left Bank dive. His fame started back in 1900 with the chassis and power plant of the Austro-Daimler and really came to a boil with his SSK Mercedes and later the famed Auto-Union. Doctor Porsche got more sex appeal on four wheels in a single day than Minsky could cram on a runway in 30 years. To the real gone automotive nut, Dr. Porsche’s engineering with such cars as the SSK had the same head-spinning effect as a pipeful of poppy dust to a Chinese playboy.

If the U.S.A. ever wins back leadership in international road racing, this is the car that will do it, says Mi’s own auto expert.

By Tom McCahill

THE 1952 Cunninghams have four wheels and a base Chrysler block but aside from this they look no more like the 1951 models than I resemble Fred Astaire on a ballroom floor. The first cars came in for a lot of hard criticism because of their unfortunate showing in the 24-hour race at Le Mans a year ago. But before the year was out, they succeeded in cramming a crankcase full of words down the critics’, throats by running away with the Elkhart Lake and Watkins Glen races. In finishing one, two and four at Watkins Glen, even the sourest observer was forced to admit that they were about the hottest cars ever to run on these shores. And this year the Cunningham is even hotter.

Featuring a unique pushbutton transmission, the new Dodge will be hard to beat in the medium-priced field, reports Uncle Thomas.

By Tom McCahill

THE fan-out of the rear fender line is the big styling change for the 1956 Dodge. Oddly enough, this looks much better in person than in photographs. The hood has been drooped slightly at the nose, a new ornament has been slapped on, and under the hood there is a much larger ram than for ’55.